Kiev. Photographer Thomas Girondel portraits Maïdan during and after the 2014 conflict

The French photographer documented the 2014 civil war. Three years later he goes back to Kiev’s main square to analyse its changings.

On February 20, Ukraine remembers the 100 deaths of the Maïdan uprising. Kiev’s Independence Square was the center of a civil war that brought a pro-Western government to power, to the detriment of Viktor Ianukovich, the then Ukrainian president, backed by the Russian government.

Img.1 Thomas Girondel, Revolution, Prayers & Routine, Kiev, 2014-17
Img.2 Thomas Girondel, Revolution, Prayers & Routine, Kiev, 2014-17
Img.3 Thomas Girondel, Revolution, Prayers & Routine, Kiev, 2014-17
Img.4 Thomas Girondel, Revolution, Prayers & Routine, Kiev, 2014-17
Img.5 Thomas Girondel, Revolution, Prayers & Routine, Kiev, 2014-17
Img.6 Thomas Girondel, Revolution, Prayers & Routine, Kiev, 2014-17
Img.7 Thomas Girondel, Revolution, Prayers & Routine, Kiev, 2014-17
Img.8 Thomas Girondel, Revolution, Prayers & Routine, Kiev, 2014-17
Img.9 Thomas Girondel, Revolution, Prayers & Routine, Kiev, 2014-17
Img.10 Thomas Girondel, Revolution, Prayers & Routine, Kiev, 2014-17
Img.11 Thomas Girondel, Revolution, Prayers & Routine, Kiev, 2014-17
Img.12 Thomas Girondel, Revolution, Prayers & Routine, Kiev, 2014-17

In spring 2014, French photographer Thomas Gironde documented the conflicting territories and life with an analog camera. Three years later he returned to the same places to tell the post-Maïdan universe. In his photoessay he presents some diptychs that show how Kiev’s landscape has changed. The author writes: “Independence Square were occupied for 6 months by activists and their camps. Maïdan as an inviolable sanctuary. While the active majority of the revolutionaries left the place, most of the activists are still trying to stay there.”